What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet Part One Numeric and Demographic Literacy

Copyright 2009, Randolph Femmer. All rights reserved.

Each day there are approximately births During the same 24 hours, there are approximately deaths

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Notice that there are approximately birthseach day minus equals

persons inhabiting our planet each hour Notice that this amounts to approximately

persons to our planet every twelve to fifteen years At these rates of growth, we add approximately

as simply very large numbers It is easy to think of a and a

different But in reality, they are

homework questions at a rate of How long would it take to complete one 100 questions per night, five nights per week 52 weeks per year

to finish such an assignment Answer: It would take

homework questions How long would it take to complete one working at the same rate?

To complete one billion such questions would require Answer:

This means that if a student began working on this assignment years ago

When ice was one mile thick over and

When and still roamed the earth

And each and every homework question was conscientiously completed years from then until now for all

The student would have to CONTINUE working on their homework years into the future for ANOTHER in order to finish their assignment

That is how many people we are adding to our planet every twelve to fifteen years

No wonder earth’s environmental and biological machinery is breaking

Notice that a billion is an number

We should not be surprised if such enormous numbers have potentially-disastrous humanitarian, civilizational, and biospheric implications

While our population would remain stable if births and deaths were equal At today’s rates, we add additional people to our planet every twelve to fifteen years

Food Health care Housing Roads Education Employment

Sanitation Drinking water and a host of Other necessities And this is without yet raising the issues of all the environmental damage that we inflict

by this same time on Monday Earth will be home to For example, additional people

Hopefully, someone, somewhere is planning to grow a LOT of extra food over the weekend

by this same time on Friday Earth will be home to Similarly, additional people

Necessitating completion of more than additional classrooms by this same time on Friday Math footnote: Assuming that all “replacement” children can be accommodated by existing classrooms, then 800,000 additional children divided by 25 students per classroom necessitates completion of more than 32,000 additional classrooms by this same time on Friday.

What if not enough jobs are available? What if not enough schools and classrooms are built? What if no electricity and firewood are available? What if young men ages 15 – 30 have little schooling, no skills, and no jobs?

It took about one-hundred years (1850 to 1950) for the populations of the United States and Europe to approximately double Today, the populations of many of the world’s poorest countries have been doubling every three decades or less

Even a rich country would find it nearly impossible to repeatedly double all of its schools, services, health care, and infrastructure in repeated spans of two or three decades and some have QUADRUPLED in less than fifty years If the world’s poorest nations were working with stable populations, their chances of improving standards of living would be greatly enhanced

Recall that a billion is a very, very large number

Notice that it took ALL of human history until 1930 for us to reach

And now, just since 1930 we have added additional persons to our planet in less than one human lifetime

1930 – 1960: Two billion grew to three billion 1960 – 1975: Three billion grew to four billion 1975 – 1987: Four billion grew to five billion 1987 – 1999: Five billion grew to six billion

And our  7 th  8 th and  9 th billions are all on-track to arrive between now and mid-century

No human beings in history have ever lived through such a demographic onslaught

Throughout history, we have always been able to count on the functioning of earth’s natural systems as a given Today, however, our population has already become so large, and continues to grow larger so rapidly that such PRESUMPTIONS are no longer warranted

A continuation of today’s demographic tidal wave may constitute the greatest single risk that our species has ever undertaken

For further information, see our book Wecskaop and/or other PowerPoints and PDFs in this series

This PowerPoint features excerpts from Anson, A What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet. Used with permission.

This PowerPoint features excerpts from Anson, A What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet.

For information on the book version of Wecskaop call

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